The Naked Gardener (7 page)

“If we tell her all about us, will she tell us all about her?” Charlene, the cross examiner.

“You do it. You got us all onto the council in the beginning.” Roz pointed at Erica and then leaned over and waved a dragonfly away from the canoe.

“We want to hear Katelyn’s story first,” said Charlene.

“Okay then, Katelyn, first tell us how you and Maze met,” Erica said, turning around to face me in the bow. “Whoa,” she sucked in a breath and grabbed the gunwales as the canoe wobbled when she changed her position. “Careful,” she warned.

“You be careful,” Charlene told her. “You’re the one who’s moving around in there. So, tell us.” She pointed to me. “If Erica falls in we’ll just let her swim the rest of the way.”

“My boyfriend from college and I lived together after I got back from a nine month Fulbright in Italy. I got a degree in art. He was a musician. We struggled. Financially, you know.”

“So that was before Maze?” Roz asked. “A musician and an artist? No money? Hard to imagine,” she teased.

“I know, right? I was very naïve then.”

“Is this too personal?” Hope asked me.

I shook my head slowly. I was wondering what they would think about my story. Maze knew all about it but he was hardly what you could call an innocent bystander.

“It’s okay,” I said and went on about the past in a kind of dreamy state out there on the river. So far from every day life. Like I was on a cruise. These were shipboard buddies. The kind you get close to fast and then break away from after you dock. I didn’t consider what they might think or say tomorrow.

“We were willing to live without money. We just wanted to be free to follow wherever our art took us. We were in complete agreement on that. We lived like scavengers, moving from one cheap place to another, collecting other people’s cast offs, buying clothes at Goodwill. He booked himself into any gig he could, played for nickels and dimes, got stiffed by club owners. Four years went by like that.”

“And you were what … twenty something?” Charlene asked. She dropped one foot over the gunwale and tapped her toes on top of the water. “Oooo,” she cooed, “it’s cold. But nice.”

“I was twenty-five when he got a letter that an uncle he barely knew had died and left him a big lot on a busy street corner. He went to talk to a realtor about selling it and she told him it was a good place for a strip mall. She offered to set up financing and be his partner. We would have income for life. He borrowed money from a bank using the land as collateral, built the mall, rented it out and made money. With the profits he bought another piece of land next to it and built a bigger strip mall. This realtor was hungry. Before I knew it, he was becoming a strip mall king and he stopped playing music. He turned into this controlling, workaholic, money crunching machine. He joined the Chamber of Commerce, wanted me to change the way I dressed and have people over for drinks and join the country club. Wanted to plan huge events. Especially our wedding. He got totally fixated on that. It was a nightmare. There was nothing I could do to get him to let go. It was like a drug.”

“What happened? Obviously you didn’t stay,” Roz said.

“One day I just packed up a couple of bags and left everything but my clothes and art supplies. My art rep had told me about a quiet little village on the Mexican Pacific. So I got on a plane and flew down there. I didn’t even have a place to stay so I went to a B&B for two weeks until I rented a small house in the hills above the beach.”

“Wow,” said Hope. “And you did it all by yourself?”

“How long were you with this music man?” Roz asked.

“Six years if you count the time at school. I thought we’d be together our whole lives.”

“But you were just kids,” Roz said. “So young.”

“I’ll never make that mistake again,” I said. “How old were you when you got married?”

“Yes, tell us your sordid tale,” Erica leaned over and let her fingers run along the surface of the water then flicked some drops at Roz. She turned to me. “Roz has two daughters in college. She has a Ph.D. and works for a research company. She has trouble with men.”

“I do not have trouble with men. As a matter of fact I like men very much.”

“True. She likes
lots
of men.”

“You’re a prude.”

“You know, just because I’m big doesn’t mean I don’t have yens.”

“Hey, did I say anything about your weight? Or your yens?”

“She’s been married three – count ’em three – times and now she’s taken up with a truck driver.”

“We all live a little vicariously through Roz,” Charlene broke in. “I think Erica’s jealous of the new boyfriend. You met Will, right?” Charlene rolled her eyes.

“For the record,” Roz spoke directly to me, “I met Ed,” she tilted her head to the side in a little bow when she spoke his name, “when I was attending a conference in Las Vegas. He was winning big at the blackjack table. Really big. And buying drinks for everybody. He spotted me and asked if I was hungry. Well what was I supposed to say?”

“She’s always hungry,” Valerie broke in. “
Always
.”

“They gave him one of those high roller suites with all the trimmings so he invited me up there for dinner and I stayed the night.”

“And that was the beginning of a love affair of the soul,” Erica added.

“We’re having a good time. What’s wrong with that? He’s on the road all the time. When he passes near here he stops for a day or two. And sometimes we meet in Vegas or Atlantic City. When he’s winning, it’s exciting and fresh and fun. And he treats me like a princess. I don’t want anything more than that so what’s the problem?”

“Nothing,” said Charlene. “Except that you can’t possibly have anything to talk about.”

“You’d be surprised. Ed is sort of a renaissance man. He can talk on any number of subjects.” She turned to me and whispered, “Charlene has four older sisters. When they were kids, they used to call her Snarlene.”

“Talk is easy anyway.” I don’t know why I broke in like that. I must have been thinking about Maze. They all looked at me. No one spoke. “I mean finding someone you can really connect with is … ”

“Don’t you feel connected to Maze?” Hope asked. She seemed mystified by these stories.

“Will and I are connected. Good God we are so connected we have almost nothing to say to each other anymore. After thirty years together, we’ve said it at all least fifty times. What else is there to talk about?”

“I wish I’d been married to someone for thirty years.” Hope’s voice was wistful and quiet. The canoes made a soft whooshing sound against the water. “It must be very comforting.”

“At your age that would mean you’d have been married at two. Besides you don’t even date.” Valerie’s voice was even lower now. And I noticed a flat edge to it that sounded almost Midwestern.

“Yes. How do you expect to get married if you don’t even test the waters?” Charlene slid her leg out over the side of the canoe and dipped her toes into the river. “Speaking of waters, ooh, that is so cool and fresh. Hey, when we eat lunch I’m going for a swim.”

“Katelyn,” said Roz looking over at me. “What do you think? Is it better to have sex and not even think about marriage? You’re not married to what’s his name, right?”

“Maze? No. We’re not married.”

“You didn’t finish,” Hope said. “About how you and Maze met.”

“I’ll tell you that story later. I want to hear about all of you.”

“Well I decided a long time ago that marriage and I were not compatible. I’m too driven. Too focused on work. Besides when I’m involved in a trial I don’t have any time or energy for anything but my client. I have to be there one hundred and ten percent.”

“So there’s no man in your life?”

“Oh sure there is. We don’t live together. But we’ve been together for – what is it now – twelve years I think. He owns his house. I own my house. We spend weekends together. We go on trips together when I’m between court cases. We’re very satisfied with things the way they are.” Erica’s raised eyebrows hinted Charlene was not coming completely clean about something.

“What’s that look for?” Charlene asked, “We like our situation, no matter what some people may think. Anyway, Val’s the happily married one here. She’s carrying the banner for the rest of us.”

Valerie let her hand dip in the water. She smiled, as if this was some joke between them. “Yes, I’m just a living ideal, am I not?” She arched her neck back and looked up at the sky from beneath the brim of her stylish straw hat.

The rafted canoes glided along. Spots of sunlight glittered on the water. The air had turned warm although it had happened imperceptibly. One moment it was a cool morning and the next it had turned into midday.

One by one the women let go their hold on each other’s paddles. After a few more curves in the river we came to the first flat area with shallow water where I had designated on the map as a good place to rest up and eat a leisurely lunch. The day was fine. The birds had stopped singing. They too were resting in the middle of the day.

CHAPTER SIX

THE TROUT

The spot that had looked so fine on the chart turned out to be overgrown with poison ivy and brambles along the banks. There was not a good pull out for the canoes. It was hot by then, but we pushed on, paddling steadily now to find someplace to take a break. Around two bends in the river, we came upon a wide flat stretch of sandy bank that formed an island where the river breached into two parts. We pushed onto this sandbar island, bows first, one after the other. The stern paddlers had to step into water up to their knees to get out. We splashed around a bit and squealed with the cold. On the far side of the sandy island where the water slowed, a long pool formed. It was deeper over there, the clear water dark, perfect for sunning with a few large flat rock ledges above the water’s surface,.

There were tufts of grasses here and there and short wispy willows along the far side of the bank. Redwings flitted around resentfully, disturbed by our presence, crying out as they settled on a willow, hanging like acrobatics from its swinging branches. Somewhere a jay called raucously.

I walked over to that side of the island and stood quietly gazing at one particular rock ledge that had an outcropping hanging far out above the water.

“Hey, Katelyn, what’re you doing over there? Don’t you want some lunch?”

It was Charlene, the director.

“Would anyone like fresh grilled trout for lunch?” I called back without turning my head.

“What are you talking about?”

Roz came to stand by my side. “And what are you looking at over there?”

“Does anyone want fresh grilled trout for lunch?” I repeated.

“Sure but the maitre’d says our table isn’t ready,” Roz answered.

The others came over.

“If you all will gather some dry wood and start a fire, I’ll catch us some trout to grill.”

I pushed my jeans down and stepped out of them, stripped off my T-shirt and waded into the water in my bra and panties.

“Whoa. Look at nature girl.”

This was more than even Roz, the rebel, expected.

“Oh man. That looks like fun.”

Charlene waded in. “Wait for me,” she called. She stripped down, came up beside me, and we walked farther in toward the flat rocks.

“Go collect some wood, you guys,” I called back to the others as we hit water deep enough to start swimming to the far side of the rock ledge.

Once we reached the rocks, I could see the others scurrying back to the middle of the island where they picked up driftwood that was lying around everywhere. Some of the pieces were too large for the fire but they dragged these over anyway. It was as if some primitive nesting instinct took over, as if the women were preparing to spend the winter on this little piece of land. Roz and Valerie stacked the wood and collected more. Erica and Hope unloaded the duffels packed with food. Took out the mess kits and a pot for boiling water. Set up a small standing grill on some rocks that they arranged in a circle to make a fire pit. Spread a cloth on the ground, prepared the lunch table with canned goods and small drink cartons. In packing for camping, they had tried to bring food in containers they could burn so they would make as little trash to carry back as possible. They stacked the firewood so it had a lot of air and then lit the kindling. It caught quickly and they collected more to have extra to add as it burned down. I could hear them talking.

“Do you think this water is okay to cook in?” Erica asked Hope.

Hope shrugged. “I guess so. It’s way out here with nothing upriver but river. I mean what could be in it but water? There aren’t any farms or industrial plants or sewage or anything. I think it’s okay.”

Erica fanned the fire with a branch that still had green leaves on it. The fire crackled and spit. They tossed more branches on it. It flared up. They let it burn down some while they set up the rest of the lunch things. When it was a smaller fire, Erica placed the grill above one end of it above the flames so it wasn’t in the fire but got plenty of heat from below. Hope stuck more branches around the down wind side and the fire settled into a steady burn. The others came over to admire the fire. Roz opened a drink and took a long swig. It was only then that they looked over to the pool on the other side of the island.

In a few long steady strokes we had reached the down stream end of the first rock ledge. The overhang faced up current. I skirted the rounded end looking for a handhold and found one on the far side of the rock. I grabbed onto a natural groove where I could hook my fingers over and get a secure grip. By placing my feet flat against the rock just under the water, I used the resistance of the dry ledge to lock my fingers in place to hoist myself up far enough to grab the rock higher up and pull onto the top of the ledge. I lay there in the sun, breathing hard after the swim and exertion of lifting my body out of the water, waiting for Charlene to follow me around. The stone was warm from the sun. My skin was cold from the fresh water. Charlene stretched out next to me.

“This is so nice,” she murmured. “So relaxing. I live my life in small offices and stuffy courtrooms. Sometimes I feel like I want to throw all the papers on my desk out the window and watch them fly. Just fly to the winds anywhere they want to go.” She closed her eyes to the sunlight and breathed deeply. “Is this what it’s like to be an artist?”

“Sunning on a rock?”

“No.” She giggled. “I mean getting inspired by nature. Letting down your guard. Letting go of the everyday world.”

“Not exactly,” I told her. “Artists have all of the same struggles everyone else has. Except they rarely make enough money to live on, and they have the extra burden of being pushed internally by ideas and visions that nobody else has. It’s not a decision. It’s built in.”

I raised my arms and let them fall back above my head on the rock. Sunlight bathed my body and the warm rock felt solid under me. I stood up on it and Charlene didn’t move. Her eyes were still closed. I walked to the end facing the current and knelt down. I leaned as far out as I possibly could without falling back into the water. One of the women called to me. Was it Hope? I focused on the water below the overhanging rock. It was not too shallow. The current was slow here. I reached gently into the water, letting my arms hang down about three feet apart. With great care and control I moved my hands, fingers splayed open, under the ledge feeling blindly for what I knew would be there in the middle of the day, hiding from the sun, asleep for a time. Then I felt the belly of it. Soft. Slick. Its tail swishing faintly with the current. I ran my fingers gently under its belly, tickling in little strokes. When I reached the gills, fanning in the water, I quickly locked my fingers inside them and yanked the head back, instantly killing the trout. I pulled it out of the water with almost no disturbance and laid it behind me. I moved to a new spot on the wide ledge and repeated the procedure.

By now the fire was crackling and the rest of the food had been prepared. When I had caught six trout, Charlene pulled over a large piece of flat driftwood that had settled on the rock, abandoned there by high water after some storm. I laid out the fish on the wood and we let ourselves down into the river. The water was cool and fresh. My feet glided over the pebbly bottom while I tried not to rock the wood.

With great care we floated the trout raft ahead of us, walking all the way back to the island, even though in the middle between the rock ledges and sandy island the water was almost too deep to touch bottom. When we got close, the others scrambled into the water up to their knees to meet us.

I salted the trout and then wrapped them in big leaves and we steamed them over the coals. When the aroma was at its peak, we took them out carefully and peeled away the shriveled leaves. Inside the trout were perfectly cooked.

“Where did you ever learn how to do that? Catch a trout like that?” Hope asked after we had settled down and eaten lunch.

“I have a lot of odd skills. I picked up this one from a boyfriend when I was nineteen. He was older. Twenty-three. He was going off to medical school in the fall. His family was from the Ukraine. When he was little they escaped from the Communists, moved to Austria, and then to the states. They used to go to the Smokey mountains in the summer when he was a kid. He had learned how to catch trout with his hands before they left the Ukraine. He took me up there camping for a week and we lived on what we caught in the river and found in the woods. He taught me a lot.”

“I’ll bet,” said Charlene. “Tickling trout while he was tickling your fancy.”

* * *

I learned to fish in the Keys. Easy fishing in the beginning. Practice casting off the stern of a skiff in the Gulf. Hooking sea trout and snapper on a feather with light spinning tackle. Later fly fishing for bonefish on the flats on the Atlantic side. We’d go down for the tarpon tournament in June when the sun was so strong it could knock you on your ass if you didn’t wear a hat and long sleeves and drink gallons of water. I loved it. Being out there with the men. Keeping up with them, casting to the exact spot where the guide told me a fish was lurking and then hitting that spot like I had a homing device on the line.

I was fifteen. My father, me, and a guide named Buddy took off for tarpon from Bud and Mary’s marina in Islamorada. We arrived just before dawn. Brought a bagged lunch – sandwiches and drinks – enough for ourselves and the guide. That was the protocol. I wore a white cotton hat I could dip in the water to cool my head later when the sun was up and a long sleeved white cotton shirt. Light weight long pants. The guide supplied rods, reels, shrimp if you were using bait, feather lures if you weren’t, fly rods if you thought you were good enough to hook a tarpon on a fly. During tournaments no bait was allowed. No cell phones or two way radios. We went out in an open sixteen foot skiff with a Bimini top the guide would raise for shade at lunchtime. Along one side of the boat a long pole was lashed to a couple of hooks. At the stern of the boat, the built in bait box road in the water to keep the shrimp alive. Once we headed west into the uncharted uninhabited dry islands west of the Keys in the gulf, we were alone with nothing but the water, the sky, the sun and the birds. If we had to pee, the men turned their backs and let go off the side. They would pull into one of the tiny mangrove islands and let a woman off to squat behind a pile of bleached white driftwood or anything she could find. There wasn’t much. Land crabs. Roseate spoonbills. Egrets, herons and pelicans. Once in a while, a fin rode along in the water and if it came close enough, you could see the shark sidling by. Sometimes they were as long as your boat. Dark gray shapes moving stealthily through the pale, milky, blue water. You hoped none would be nearby if you hooked a tarpon. Out there, if a squall came up, or you drank too much gin and fell overboard, you could disappear and no one would ever find you.

We were far out in the Gulf. We’d had lunch. Not seen many fish. Buddy said if we didn’t spot any tarpon in the next half hour he’d run us over to the ocean flats and we’d try for bonefish.

I was casting. A spinning rod with a feather on fifteen pound line. Light tackle to hook a legend among fish. I spotted a tail. I cast out and watched the little feather lure float through the air. Arching above the water, the line dropped and landed the white feather slightly beyond and in front of where I’d seen the tail. I jigged it. Jigged it again. Watched the tarpon tail again and then roll, its silver belly like a big crystal log. I jigged the line inches past where I calculated its mouth would be and wham. It hit. Yanked hard at the line. Pulled the rod tip down. I hauled up with all my strength to set the hook in its bony throat. If this was a good set I would have a struggle ahead. If not, the tarpon would spit my hook back out and the rod would snap back up. But it curved down in a half circle, dipping toward the water. A good set. My father and Buddy pulled in their lines.

I walked my line back along the gunwale following where the fish was headed.

Buddy was on it in a second. He lifted the pole and leapt onto the bow. He watched the water. Guides spend almost every day year after year out there on the water. They can read a shadow in the water like a lynx on the hunt. They could tell how many fish were in a ripple, what kind of school made a wake, if one fish was hunting another. They could spot the shadow of a tarpon, as it swam alone or in twos or threes in the channels.

“Set him again,” Buddy yelled. “Set him hard before he jumps.”

It was too late. The giant fish broke water. It leaped high into the air, its glistening muscular body twisting, head shaking to get rid of the lure. I dropped the rod tip to let up on the tension. If you pulled when the tarpon breached, you’d yank the hook out and lose the fish.

“Give him slack,” Buddy yelled. “Don’t lose him, now.”

Down he went flat on his side, splashing water, making waves that rocked the small skiff. I pulled at the rod to raise the tip again, trying to lead the fish toward the boat. But the tarpon had other ideas.

It plunged down under water again and then it did what no one expected. It started to run. Straight out toward the open Gulf waters. My line sang as the fish pulled it farther and farther. I tried to reset the drag but the line was running too fast. Besides, when you have a hundred plus pound fish on a fifteen pound test line and he’s running away from you, setting the drag too tight will just snap your line.

Buddy stuck the fourteen foot push pole into the water and started to pole after the fish. He ran the pole along the side of the boat and pulled it up when he reached the very stern, then ran back up to the bow and started again. Over and over he poled after the fish while I hauled my rod tip up against it and reeled in on the downward drop. After fifteen minutes of this, the fish seemed to be running out of steam. Buddy quit poling and I reeled in steadily.